43 People Share How They Accidentally Conditioned Their Pets To Learn Unusual Skills Or Habits

u/shoonpo told Bored Panda that they came up with the idea for the post when they were... sitting on the toilet! "One of my cats has learned that he gets lots of pets and scratches when I go to the bathroom. He always gets so excited to go the bathroom because he knows it's guarantee scritches. I wondered if anybody else had also accidentally conditioned their pet like that and posted the question expecting a few cute pet stories," the Redditor said. But as you can see from the list, not only cats are fast learners!

According to Bell, any reward-motivated animal is the easiest to train, including dogs, cats, chickens, and even fish. "Their species doesn't matter as much as you'd think when it comes to training! The more they want treats or pets or attention or a certain toy, the easier they are to train. My two cats that are obsessed with treats are so easy to train that I can teach them a new behavior in a couple of 5-minute sessions. But my cat that is 'meh' about treats takes more time, work, and patience. Helpful training tip: I reserve treats for training time only. When they hear the treat bag crinkle, they know that they’re in training mode and are ready to learn. This gives more value to the reward which also helps with training."

However, the expert said that some pets are just not that motivated and are difficult to train. "If you have a pet that does not seem to get excited about anything: attention, treats, food, pets, toys, you should have them checked out by your vet to make sure they're feeling ok."

Many of the behaviors on the list are harmless and fun, but unintentional training can lead to tricky situations as well. For example, imagine every time you get out a carrier, your cat hides because it means it's going to the vet. Maybe you don't even need to imagine this scenario, maybe you've already experienced it! Annoying, right? Plus, the animal is experiencing added stress. But there's usually a way out. "A common solution for [the previously mentioned problem] would be to leave the carrier out all the time and make it appealing to the cat with a cozy blanket, toys, and catnip inside of it," Bell explained. "Then you've eliminated the 'getting the carrier out' part that causes them to hide. Then you reward the cat every time they go in the carrier on their own."

"If you've done something similar, don't worry because you can train the opposite behavior and they'll eventually forget about the unwanted behavior," Bell reassured. "Now when Yohan jumps on the counter, I casually set him on the ground without sweet talk, attention, or kisses. And then reward him when he stays on the ground. When it comes to cats: Ignore the behavior you don’t want and reward the behavior you want to see more of. Remember that punishment does not work with cats. It only causes stress and distrust and leads to even more unwanted behaviors."

All the attention u/shoonpo received over their post simply blew them away. In fact, they finally understood what 'RIP my inbox' really means! "It just made me super excited to see that so many people resonated with the question," the Redditor explained. "I absolutely loved reading and responding to the answers for the first couple hours after I posted. I went to bed shortly after and woke up to a gazillion notifications. It really was just so wonderful seeing how happy it made so many people though. I wished I could have interacted more, but I am definitely really grateful that I interacted the first couple hours."

But if you want to willingly condition your pet to do something, go to Best Friends and check out their amazing articles on pet training!